Tags: Disease.
A prion (/ˈpriːɒn/) in the Scrapie form (PrPSc) is an infectious agent composed of protein in a misfolded form. This is the central idea of the Prion Hypothesis which remains debated. This would be in contrast to all other known infectious agents (virus/bacteria/fungus/parasite)—which must contain nucleic acids (either DNA RNA or both). The word prion coined in 1982 by Stanley B. Prusiner is derived from the words protein and infectious.
